Do Students Care about the Reasons for Christianity?
Do apologetics matter to people, such as many young people today, who base their convictions on feelings? Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason discusses. For more information, visit str.org.
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the 10 commandments prove christianity is a satanic religion!
Do you think a study of the prophecies in the Bible will help. It did for me. I saw God know the end in the beginning. It was real.
God draws all men unto Him and He gives a measure of faith to every man, it's then up to us to decide whether to believe or not.
Jesus made salvation conditional upon belief.
For anyone who is unsure about their salvation please check out Renee Roland on YouTube, it really is all about Jesus.
I just had to jump in here. I also work with our youth group. We once had a man come it and teach apologetics, and the kids ate it up. I have your book tactics and ordered the DVD, Study Guide, book bundle for my pastor months ago. To the best of my knowledge he hasn't eve watched the DVD yet. Then I got your Story of Reality teaching set, contacted the man who was here before, and this past Friday we began with the Introduction. Now you pack a lot of information and as my friend Micah (yes that's really his name) put it, sometimes it can be like trying to get a drink out of a fire hydrant. Yet, being the teacher he is he went and made a PDF presentation in Google Docs that could be supported by the computer Most of them have not thought of Christianity as a picture of reality, of the was things are meant to be. They were not turned off by the intellectual challenge but almost seemed refreshed by it. One girl asked how she could express these truths to a friend of hers who is a Muslim. I mentioned Tactics to her and suggested she ask the pastor if she could borrow that for a while. Whoever that person was they may be truly sincere, but have never seen a young person when the light comes on, because that's beautiful thing to witness.
"Who base their convictions on feelings"? You've just described Christianity in a nutshell, haven't you? Christians were almost always raised Christian, and they seem to believe it only because that's what they really, really want to be true.
Sorry, but if you've got one piece of good evidence backing up your religious beliefs, I'd love to hear it. One shouldn't be too much to ask, should it? But it always is.
Note that I wrote that just from the video description. That's where I got the quote. But as it turned out, when I watched the video, Greg Koukl seems to agree with that. Well, he agrees with the first part of it, at least. Children are indoctrinated with their particular religion – Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Mormon, etc. – and that seems normal to them, because they're typically surrounded by people who believe the same thing (because they, too, were taught to believe it as children).
So that impressed me. It's rare that I talk to a theist who recognizes that. Nevertheless, I don't think he's giving young people enough credit. They don't abandon their religion, with its promises of everlasting life and its threats of eternal torment, just for "feelings." That's not an easy thing to do. Indeed, emotional manipulation is more likely to keep them believing what they were taught to believe as a child, because it's what they really, really want to be true.
When they get older, though, they just get a chance to talk to people who disagree with them about religion. Perhaps for the first time in their life they discover that not everyone accepts what they were taught to believe from infancy – and some of them care enough about the truth to actually consider the possibility that their beloved religious beliefs aren't actually true. Or that there's no good reason to think that they're true, at least.
"We send one of our staffers in as an atheist into their youth groups"
Heh, heh. Right. You pretend to be an atheist. Basically, you strawman atheists. And sure, that probably works until they actually talk to an atheist and realize that the strawman version you fed them is complete nonsense.
Really, doesn't that seem silly to you? How can you imagine that's a good idea?
Hey, if you want to talk to a real atheist, I'm right here. Let's talk – here or by email. (You can find my email address by going to my YouTube channel and clicking on the link under the "About" tab.)
Anyway, I'm not a student. I haven't been a student for nearly a half-century. So don't ask me about young people! Heh, heh. But I suspect that they're a lot smarter than you give them credit for. They're leaving Christianity for a reason – a good reason, I suspect.
After all, what if I ask you for one piece of good evidence that your god is real, rather than just imaginary? Or one piece of good evidence that any of the magical/supernatural stories in the Bible actually happened? Your choice. Just one.
Well, I guess we'll see…